


Broken, but Still Fixable

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, Cross Over, M/M, Thrawn Triology, well not exactly more like a retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacen Solo’s family life is not what many would consider normal. However, his mother didn’t devour his father after he impregnated her, so things could, comparatively, be worse. But in comparison to other humanoid species, it’s far from standard, to say the least.</p><p>~An adaption of TFA~</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken, but Still Fixable

**Author's Note:**

> So no one's confused, Jacen Solo is just Poe but with a different name and backstory- same with Jaina and Rey. Yeah, it's a stretch, I know. Just hear me out on this one, okay?

“I had no idea we had a spawn of Solo on board. And I hear you’re the best pilot in the Resistance at that.” Kylo Ren’s voice is low, distorted from his mask as he stares down his prisoner. “Comfortable?

“Not really,” Jacen spits back. The restraints are too tight around the pilot’s wrists and his split lip stings as he voices his discomfort, leaving a salty and slightly metallic taste in his mouth. Blood is dripping down a cut on his temple, dangerously close to spilling into his eye and then obscuring his vision. Every muscle in his body aches, too tired to feel pain anymore. They really did a number on him in the interrogation room, not that he let any information slip. Tough cookie, that’s what his mom always called him.

“I’m impressed. No one has been able to get out of you what you did with the map.” Kylo Ren’s stare, even below his mask, feels like it’s burning onto his skin. His words are complimentary, but they sound almost condescending, like a parent complimenting a child on a scribbled picture that resembles more of a scribbled string theory diagram than an actual person. Jacen’s willing to bet Kylo’s smirking at him, like a cat at a captured mouse.

"Might wanna rethink your technique.” If Kylo Ren wasn’t wearing that dumb mask the pilot would’ve been able to see his actual reaction. Instead he’s left guessing, likely a cross between disgust, anger, and amusement. Honestly, Kylo Ren could be anyone or anything hidden under the mask and dark robes. Jacen’s tired mind whirls through the possibilities: his face could be dominated by an unfortunately prominent unibrow, or painted like a street-fair clown. Even better, Kylo Ren could just be several tiny creatures stacked up on each other’s shoulders and masquerading as a single man under the dark coat. Jacen tries to laugh at the image, but his bruised ribs protest and all that comes out is a tiny wheeze.

He watches as Kylo Ren raises a gloved arm until it’s a few inches from his face, and he feels the masked man pressing at the barriers of his mind. Jacen strains to keep his defenses in place, the effort of it pulls his head towards Kylo Ren's outstretched hand. The masked man pushes even harder against the pilot’s mental blockade until Jacen is in agony trying to hold his ground, panting and sweating like he’s run ten miles, even though he’s barely moved an inch in his restraints. His limited training is nothing compared to the brute strength of Kylo Ren, but he won’t let that keep him from trying. Not when the fate of the Resistance, maybe even the Galaxy if he’s feeling pretentious, depends on him.

“The Resistance will not be intimidated by you,” he grits out between clenched teeth.

The pilot is violently thrown back against the headrest of his interrogation table as Kylo Ren’s efforts double, pummeling against his mind like a hurricane against a shambly excuse for a shelter, overwhelming his weak barriers and delving into his mind. It’s everything his mother ever warned him about the dark side of the Force, twisted and dark and angry, so angry, pulsing with hatred. He screams helplessly as Kylo Ren extracts the information he wants and storms out of the interrogation room, leaving the spent pilot gasping and trembling on the interrogation table in his wake.

* * *

 “Yes! Did you see that?! Did you see that!”

The former stormtrooper’s excited yells fill the cockpit of the stolen Tie Fighter as they evade the attacks of the First Order Destroyer. He’s beaming, the resistance pilot can tell, even though he can’t see the other man’s face, he can hear it in his voice. The excitement of the ex-trooper is contagious, as is his wide grin. Jacen feels a smile of his own pulling at his lips, reveling in the rush of adrenaline and the feeling of having escaped certain death thanks to his unnamed rescuer. Which reminds him-

“I saw it! Hey, what’s your name?”

“FN-2187.” He calls back, his tone shifting back into its military stiffness. It doesn’t sound right, and the pilot wants to do something to make him to go back to grinning and excited like just a second before. Jacen wonders if this is the first time the ex-trooper was allowed to be so unrestrictedly happy, if this is the first smile that the man has ever shared with another person.

“FN- what?”

“That’s the only name they ever gave me.” It’s horrible. The First Order sends these faceless fighters on suicide missions and doesn’t even have a nerve to treat them like people. Gripping the controls tightly and fighting the urge to fly back to the Finalizer and blow it to bits, Jacen takes a deep breath and attempts to restore his calm. Anger will do nothing to help this situation, he reminds himself, and getting upset won’t change the past of the man who has been called a string of numbers all his life.

“Well I ain’t using it. FN huh? Finn. I’m gonna call you Finn, that all right?”

“Finn,” his voice is back to smiling, “yeah, Finn. I like that.”

“I’m Jacen, Jacen Solo.”

“Good to meet you Jacen!”

“Good to meet you too, Finn.”

* * *

Jacen wakes up in the middle of the night, alone on Jakku and with sand in his mouth. A chill sends shivers down his spine and realizes he’s missing his jacket, the one his dad had gotten for him after he got into flight acad. It was one of the few times Han Solo had been in his life, taking a break from crossing the galaxy and hauling semi-legal cargo to spend time with his son. He mourns the loss of it as he trudges off into the desert, letting the pull of the Force guide him where he needs to go.

All that’s left from their crashed Tie Fighter is the force-signature of it deep below the surface of the sand. They must’ve landed in the sinking fields, and Jacen’s glad he managed to eject before it was swallowed up. He hopes that the former trooper- that Finn was able to make it out alive. He isn’t force sensitive enough to allow him to sense where the man is, even if he was still on Jakku, not to mention that they’d only know each other for a few moments. He hadn’t thought to register how the Force flowed through the other man, though he supposes it’s for the best, not to get too close to someone only for them to die seconds later. But his instincts tell him that Finn is still alive somewhere out there.

He arrives in a little trading town by sunrise, and no one has come across a BB unit, or at least no one will admit to have seeing one. There’s little doubt in his mind that the First Order has put a price on the little astromech’s head, and Jacen hopes that his buddy has managed to fall into the right hands and not those of Kylo Ren.

* * *

 

Jaina senses danger before she hears it. It’s not the first time this has happened, and she surely hopes it won’t be the last. The instinct has saved her life more than once, from narrowly escaping crumbling wreckages she’d been scavenging to avoiding deathly conflicts with the other beings at Niima Outpost.

She’s just finished her measly excuse for a meal when she feels the familiar tug at her gut. It only takes a few seconds to rip the abandoned X-wing helmet off her head, and then she’s off, grabbing her bow staff as she runs to where a droid is shouting binary distress calls from the net of Teedo. Ugh, Teedo. She hates dealing with the creature, who has absolutely no sense of respect or common decency. Jaina wonders if that will be her one day, if years of waiting on the harsh planet of Jakku will harden her until she’s as brittle and unapproachable as the hooded menace.

“Tal'ama parqual!” She yells and Teedo freezes, the droid spins it’s optical sensor her direction. “Parqual zatana!”

Teedo begins to grumble something about horrible, thieving humanoids snatching up everything. Jaina grits her teeth and saws at the rope net with her knife, ignoring the obviously incorrect statements coming from the menace, who has far more than they need and could stand to be a little less stingy. She finally snaps when the creature says that she ought to go back where she came from, that is, if she actually knew.

“NOMA,” she barks, brandishing the knife at the creature. Teedo finally gives up, yelling that she ought to go to the Hell-lands with all the other pesky humanoids and whips the beast they’re perched on into motion. The BB unit she just rescued begins to yell some rather unsavory things towards the departing Teedo, until Jaina shushes it.

“That’s just Teedo,” she says, kneeling down to inspect for any damage the droid might’ve inflicted from its capture. “Wants you for your parts, Teedo’s got no respect for anyone. You’re antenna’s bent.”

She detaches the misaligned piece and straightens it, noticing the BB unit’s lack of distinctive markings, except for its bright orange color. Usually someone would mark up a piece as fine as this, even though that wouldn’t protect it from getting stolen. There wasn’t much use for an astromech in the middle of the desert wasteland of Jakku, so it had to have been brought here by something, or someone. Maybe, just maybe, someone looking for a person. A person who had been left behind many years ago.

“Where do you come from?” Jaina asks the droid, who warbles back at her. “Classified? Really? Me too. Big secret.” She stands, brushing some sand from her pants and gestures towards the Eastern horizon, “Niima Outpost is that way, stay off Kelvin Ridge, and keep away from the Sinking Fields in the North, you’ll drown in the sand.”

Jaina sets off back towards her shelter, leaving the BB unit in her tracks. She tries not to feel disappointed that it wasn’t looking for her, given that the chances were so slim. Still, she won’t give up hope, not yet at least, not until her family comes to find her. The BB unit beeps from behind her and she turns to face it, realizing that it’s chasing after her. “Don’t follow me. Town is that way.”

The droid ignores her instructions and gives another beep. Jaina rolls her eyes. Maker help her, she actually felt bad for the astromech, abandoned by its owner in the sand wastes, with no way to get back home. She looks at the orange little thing and jerks her head towards her shelter. The BB unit lets out a series of excited chirps, and Jaina fights the smile pulling at her mouth. “In the morning you go.”

* * *

 

Jacen wrings his hands together as he steps off the transport and onto D-Qar. This isn’t how he wanted to return to the Resistance Base. Dream world scenario was him returning unscathed, BB-8 at his side and the map to Luke Skywalker in hand. Instead he’s beaten and empty handed, eyes hollow and thoughts still haunted from the darkness of Kylo Ren’s interrogation. Part of him wishes he’d died on the Finalizer, never having to face the disappointment of those who were counting on him, his friends and most importantly-

General Organa is standing on the tarmac where the transport lands, waiting for him to step off the ship. “General,” he acknowledges her, trying to hold back the tears threatening to slip down his face by clenching his teeth tight together. Her arms are crossed tight over her chest, her lips pursed even tighter. She looks him up and down, taking in his missing jacket, his cut lip, and the weight of failure in his eyes.

“Jacen Solo,” she says, and he winces, “You save the missing map of Luke Skywalker from the hands of the First Order by hiding it in your astromech before you were taken prisoner aboard a star destroyer. And then, just when we were sure that you had died under the hands of Kylo Ren, you comm the Resistance from across the god-dammed galaxy to arrange a transport back to base, saying that you were able to escape capture and interrogation after being rescued by a stormtrooper. You have me worried sick about you, barely able to sleep or eat because I was convinced that I had sent you straight to Hell in a handbasket. And then- and then- when you finally get home you have the nerve, the audacity, to call me General?”

“Sorry Mom.”

“You better be,” Leia holds her arms out to Jacen, “Come here you.”

It’s very funny, to be held in the arms of your mother when she is nearly a foot shorter than you, but it’s comforting nonetheless. There’s never a time when his mother’s embrace hasn’t been comforting, from when the top of his head barely reached his knees to now that he stands nearly a head taller than her. Jacen slumps in her embrace and drops his forehead to rest on his mother’s shoulder, letting a few of the tears drip onto the soft fabric of her vest.

“I was so worried, Jacen,” she says quietly, “I thought- when we heard that Kylo Ren had taken you we were sure that you were dead, or, or worse.”

“I’m here, mom.” Jacen whispers back, his grip tightening around her, “I- I didn’t save the map, though. I failed.”

“Bantha shit.” She pulls back to look at him, holding him at arm's length and keeping a tight grip on his shoulders. There’s a fierce and determined look in her eye that Jacen knows all too well. “The First Order is still looking for BB-8. And even if they had the map, it wouldn’t be the end. Your Uncle is sneaky. They could have a tracker strapped to his back and never find him.”

“Yeah but-”

She cuts him off with a jab of her finger to his chest, “Jacen, even if had you failed, which you didn’t, it doesn’t make you a failure. You’re home, and that’s all that matters to me.”

He rubs the back of his neck, staring down at his boots to avoid his mother’s all-knowing stare. And to think, her brother was the one who was a jedi. “Thanks mom.”

“Don’t mention it.” She smiles and reaches up to rub her thumb over his check, “What would I do without my favorite pilot in the Resistance?”

“General?” A tech runner interrupts their moment, and Leia turns to face her with a raised eyebrow, assuming her professional I’m-the-one-in-charge-here-aura in a blink. Jacen wipes at his nose with the fabric of his shirtsleeve, hoping his eyes aren’t too noticeably red. “We’ve gotten reports from intel on Takodana. The BB-unit has been spotted, along with the two First Order fugitives and-” she hesitates, looking down at the data reader in her hands, “and Han Solo.”

“Thank you,” Leia says to the girl, who nods and excuses herself.

“Well,” she turns to Jacen, “Looks like we’ve found your droid. Good thing too, I don’t know if we could afford to replace another astromech for you. You’d lose your head if it weren’t attached to you. Although it seems like you managed to lose the jacket, which quite possibly was, given how often you wore that ugly thing.”

Jacen laughs, and it’s like a huge, shadowy weight in his chest is slowly lessening and he doesn't feel like he’s going to suffocate on his guilt anymore. There’s still a heaviness, a sinking feeling still lingering, but it’s manageable, at least for a little while. “You’re one to talk about people losing their heads. Yours has been gone for how long now?”

His mom looks at him with a smirk and quips, “How old are you?”

* * *

 

“You might need this.”

Jaina looks at the blaster pistol Han Solo is holding out to her. She regards it with narrowed eyes, “I think I can handle myself.”

“I know you do.” He says with a disgruntled huff, “That's why I'm giving it to you. Take it.”

The blaster pistol feels odd in her hand after years of handling a bow staff and knife. Although, she must admit that her preferred weapons wouldn’t do much good against an opponent wielding a blaster. She’d be dead by the time they got close enough for her to attack. Jaina curls her fingers around the grip and holds it out in front of her, getting a feel for the weight of it. Han regards her with his usual grumpiness.

“You know how to use one of these?”

“Yeah,” she says, closing one eye and aiming it at a tree in the distance, “You pull the trigger.”

“There’s a little bit more to it than that.” He sounds almost amused by her response, and she lowers her arm, pointing the blaster at the ground. “You’ve got a lot to learn. You got a name?”

“Jaina.”

“Jaina.” There’s a glimmer of something Rey doesn’t recognize in the man’s eyes, but it disappears just as soon as she notices it. “I’ve been think of bringing on some more crew, Jaina. A second mate. Someone to help out. Someone who can keep up with Chewie and me, appreciates the Falcon.” Han stares out over the water, his thumbs tucked into the belt of his holster.

“Are you offering me a job?” She asks, not quite believing what she’s hearing. A job, with Han Solo, working on the Millennium Falcon. It’s impossible, she considers pinching herself to check if she’s dreaming.

“I wouldn’t be nice to ya.” He’s looking at her now, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. “Doesn’t pay much.”

“You’re offering me a job.” A smile spreads over her face, a warmth seeping into her skin.

“I’m thinking about it,” Han says, but his offer is clear.

Shock and awe rush through her, and she’s surprised to feel a bit of something else under the surface. It’s something she’s never felt before, a sense of belonging. She wonders if the Millennium Falcon could feel like home to her, if she could consider Chewie and Han to be family. Jaina remembers her shelter on Jakku, the rows of days scratched into the inside of a stripped AT. Tears dripping down her face as she called after a departing transport while Plutt dragged her away. Long nights of trying to remember the faces of her family, of parents or siblings and falling short, frustrated by her inability to recall anything.

“If you were, I’d be flattered. But I have to get back.”

“Jakku?” Solo asks her with a frown, and she nods.

She wonders if someone’s come looking for her in her absence. It’s been only a few days, but it only takes a few hours for a transport to land and take off again after not finding what they were looking for. “I’ve already been away too long.”

* * *

 

Jacen’s family life is not what many would consider normal. However, his mother didn’t devour his father after he impregnated her, so things could, comparatively, be worse. But in comparison to other humanoid species, it’s far from standard, to say the least.

Here is what he knows about his family:

When he was young, too young to remember first-hand, the Jedi Academy that his Uncle Luke Skywalker had built was destroyed by the Knights of Ren. His older brother Ben, who was training under his Uncle Luke at the time, and had died in the attack. Luke, the only Jedi to survive, disappeared without a trace to some unknown place in the galaxy. With the threat of the Jedi gone, the First Order began to slowly spread their dark reach over the galaxy under the reign of Supreme Leader Snoke. The Republic turned a blind eye to this, despite the pleas of several politicians who begged the Senate to open their eyes to what was happening and put a stop the the First Order.

Leia was at the forefront of this campaign, desperately trying to get back the son and brother she had lost at the hands of the First Order. When it became apparent that the Senate wouldn’t listen to her, she formed her own group, the Resistance, to do what the Republic was too afraid to do: fight back against the First Order. Meanwhile, Han Solo took to the blackness of space on the Millennium Falcon, with Chewie at his side. They once again became big names in the smuggling business, charming and swindling like it was the good old days.

His parents, despite their attempts to distract themselves with their work and by not communicating with each other, crossed paths several times. Han would deliver supplies to the Resistance when they were desperate enough to ask for his help, artificially lowering his prices just for them so that they might actually call him in now and again. During these brief periods Han would try to make time for Jacen, even if he and Leia were still on tense terms.

On the whole, Jacen was always closer to his mother than his father. It helped that he’d been raised by his mom, but her sense of appeal to creating a better galaxy always appealed to him. Not to say that he was nothing like his father, they shared a strong love for the blackness of space and careening recklessly through it from inside the cockpit of a starship.

Jacen had been ecstatic to be accepted into Flight Academy, and then quickly enlisted in the Republic Navy once he graduated. When his mother broke off from the Republic Jacen trailed quickly after her, quickly rising through the ranks and establishing himself as one of the best pilots and Commander of his squadron. It was with the Resistance that he developed the skills that flight sims and military training couldn’t teach him, like ingenuity with problem solving and thinking on his feet. Jacen hadn’t been lying when he told Finn that he could fly anything.

And speaking of-

“Jacen? Jacen Solo!?” Finn cries out, and Jacen turns his attention away from his X-Wing and the beeping astromech at his feet to see Finn sprinting towards him. He stands and rushes to meet Finn in the middle of the landing strip, and they launch themselves into a hug.

Well, it’s less of a hug and more of a collision that results with their arms wrapped around each other. Jacen claps Finn on the back and pulls away, looking him over. He’s alive, is what his shocked mind first registers, and the second is “holy shit he’s hot.” Of course, he had noted this fact about Finn during their grand escape, but then again, he’d been a little more concerned with the fact that he was being rescued and wasn’t going to die a dire death, possibly in front of squadrons of stormtroopers as some sort of ‘morale boost.’

“You’re alive!” Finn’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts, and Jacen claps a hand on his shoulder, a wide grin on his face.

“So are you!”

“What happened to you?” The former trooper asks, reluctantly letting go of the fabric of Jacen’s orange flightsuit.

“What happened? I got thrown from the crash, woke up at night- no you, no ship, nothing-” BB-8 beeps a string of binary at Jacen, who turns back to Finn with wide eyes. “BB-8 says you saved them.”

“No, no, no,” Finn shrugs his shoulders, glancing down at the floor. “It wasn’t just me- I had help.”

“You completed my mission, Finn. You-” he grabs Finn by the shoulders to make him meet his gaze when he recognizes the material beneath his fingers. He pulls away and realizes that Finn is wearing his jacket, the one he’d lost on Jakku. “That’s my jacket,” Jacen says, just to hear it out loud because this was one of the last things he expected today (though to be fair, all the events that have happened today have been unexpected).

He looks at Finn, who is wearing his leather pilot’s jacket, and who looks good in it. Really good. Fantasy-material good. If he’d thought Finn was hot before, this adds a whole new element to the equation, one he intends to thoroughly investigate. Would Finn look good in his shirt? What about his pants? Ooh- or Jacen's boxers? Nothing but the leather jacket and Jacen's tightest pair of briefs-

“Oh- here,” Finn goes to take the jacket off, his face falling as he shrugs his shoulders out of the material.

“No, no, no.” He looks at Finn, who used to be called a series of numbers, and who is wearing Stormtrooper under armor as clothing because he has quite literally nothing else. Finn, who picked up a jacket of a man who’d rescued him and given him a real name, then proceeded to wear the jacket as he ran half-way across the universe in order to complete Jacen’s mission. “Keep it. It suits you. You’re a good man, Finn.”

He bites his lip to keep himself from saying anything else, something really stupid. Something like: “and I’m sure you’d be a good man in bed.” Even though he really wants to find out.

Finn beams at him, radiant and gorgeous. It sends Jacen’s stomach into a nosedive and this was definitely going to be a problem very soon if he didn’t clamp down on this sudden infatuation. “Jacen- I need your help.”

They rush into the Resistance Base and find the General in the control room, surrounded by officers, tech runners, assistants, and informants. Jacen grabs Finn by the wrist and pulls him the the front of the group.

“Sorry to interrupt, General.” Leia turns to face him, annoyance and amusement playing on her hardened features at Jacen’s antics. “Mom, this is Finn. He needs to talk to you”

Leia’s eyes widen as she looks at Finn, then back to Jacen. Jacen realizes he’s still holding onto Finn’s wrist and drops it quickly, but not soon enough that Leia doesn’t see first, her eyebrow raising in surprise. “And I need to talk to him. Finn, that was incredibly brave, what you did. Renouncing the First Order and saving this man’s life, the life of my son- I can’t thank you enough.”

Finn looks surprised, shocked, and a little in awe. It’s not unlike many of the other times Jacen’s introduced someone to his mother. Several of his past boyfriends had complained relentlessly to him about it before and after, it isn’t everyday that you meet one of the golden trio that saved the universe from the notorious Emperor Palpatine. Also, his mom is just really really awesome, which makes her intimidating. Tiny, but intimidating.

“Thank you, Ma’am.” Finn recovers gracefully, a hesitant smile on his features and concern in his eyes, “But a friend of mine was taken prisoner.”

“Han told me about the girl, I’m sorry.”

Jacen notices the startled and slightly overwhelmed look on Finn’s face and jumps in. “Mom, Finn’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the Hosnian system. He worked on the base.”

“We’re desperate for anything you can tell us,” she tells Finn, who nods thoughtfully.

“That’s where Jaina was taken. I’ve got to get there, and fast.”

Leia’s eyes widen a fraction as Finn mentions his friend’s name, and dart over to Jacen for a half second before snapping back to focus on Finn, “And I will do everything I can to help, but first you must tell us everything you know.”

* * *

 

It’s been awhile since Jacen last saw his dad. With every victory the First Order claims his parents seem to grow a little further apart, each digging deeper into what they claim to do best and deliberately ignoring anything to do with each other. Honestly, it’s a little ridiculous, like watching some cheesy holo-drama. But now, with the two of them together on D’Qar, Jacen thinks they might have a chance to finally make things work between them, or at least a little less hostile. Or at least he hopes that’s what will happen, and not like last time when Han left with his arm in a splint and Leia nearly lost a finger as she angrily cut up vegetables for dinner that night. Fingers crossed, at least.

The control room is abuzz with frantic intell collection and congruency checking. Between Snap’s recon and Finn’s first-hand report, they might actually stand a chance to do some real damage. Jacen looks around and sees his father sitting on a bench that’s been pushed into the corner of the room. Han slumps back a little in his seat, hands shoved into pockets and a weary look on his face, a neglected paper cup of caf sitting by his hip. His eyes follow Leia as she maneuvers around the control room, seemingly paying no attention to him, though the occasional glance his direction undermines her facade.

“Hey kid.” Han says as Jacen sits down next to him.

“Hey.”

“Been a long time. You’re looking as good as ever. Even got yourself a little boyfriend over there.” Han nods his head at where Finn is talking animatedly to Lieutenant Kaydel Connix.

Jacen blushes, apparently he’s not as secretive as he thought. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Hm. Of course not.” Han takes a sip out of caf. “But you wish he was.”

“What about you and your love life, huh? What’s up with you and Mom?” He asks, trying to pull the microscope off himself and curious to hear Han’s response.

“Way to avoid the question kid,” Han stares at the cup in his hands, “Your mom, well, she doesn’t want anything to do with me. Not since Ben.”

“Of course she does.” Jacen says automatically, “She’ll never admit it, but you can tell she misses you when you’re not around. And when you finally do turn up, she’s so happy-”

“Even if it doesn’t show, I know.” The man sighs, and Jacen realizes just how old his dad looks, tired from years of running from his problems and chasing after false hopes of forgetting the past happened.

“Why can’t you let it go? What happened to Ben was so long ago. And it was terrible, yeah, but it’s over. You can’t hold yourself accountable for what you don’t have any control over. Especially when it’s driving you apart from the people who love you.”

“Jacen, it’s not that simple. I wish it was, but it’s not.” Han sighs, setting down the cup of caf and running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, kid, I can’t tell you any more. Not right now at least.”

“What do you mean?” His eyebrows knit in confusion, and he looks at Han, who seems to be on the verge of telling him something anyways when one of Leia’s assistants interrupts them.

“Han Solo? The General would like to speak with you.”

Han nods, “Duty calls. And Jacen, just know, whatever happens, your mom and I, we want whatever’s best for you because we care. Even if it doesn’t show all the time.” He pats Jacen on the knee and stands, following the assistant away into the frantic mess of the control room and leaving Jacen sitting alone with the cold cup of caf.

* * *

 

Here is what Jacen did not know about his family:

His older brother Ben was not killed by the Knights of Ren, but was taken by them and turned to the dark side. His Uncle Luke had never forgiven himself for not teaching him of the strength needed to avoid the temptation of the dark side of the force. His mother had blamed herself for sending him away from family to train with Luke in the first place. His father had blamed himself for raising his son so that he was so easily seduced by the dark side.

He did not know that Kylo Ren was once known as Ben Solo, and was his long lost older brother. Kylo Ren did know this, but believed that his younger brother’s lower force-sensitivity made him weak and unusable to the First Order. Jacen’s ‘weakness’ was what allowed him to stay with his mother, still safe from the clutches of Supreme Leader Snoke.

What neither of them knew was that Jacen had a twin sister, who was strong in the Force, even stronger than her older brother Ben. This put her in danger, so much so that after the attack on the academy she was hidden away by her Uncle Luke in a place where no one would think to look for her. There was was lost from her parents and unknown by her siblings, and safe from Snoke’s dark clutches.

* * *

 

“Is it true?”

Han gives her a small smirk and Leia rolls her eyes, “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Nerfherder,” she hits him in the arm with her datareader and he flinches, rubbing at the spot and muttering something under his breath. “You know what I meant.”

“About Jaina?” Han’s voice is softer without the teasing edge to it and she nods, “Yeah. It’s true. She’s- she’s something,”

“Where did you find her?”

“She found me. Her and that trooper-”

“Ex-trooper,” Leia corrects.

“Ex-trooper had stolen the Falcon from some Jakku trash heap and were trying to get the ball to the Illenium system.”

“Jakku. Of course.” The puzzle pieces click into place and Leia wonders how she had missed it, now that it seems so obvious, “Luke had a contact there, Lor San Tekka, the one we got the map from, he could watch over her if danger ever came near.”

“That, and no one in their right mind would want to go near that sorry excuse of a planet.”

Leia nods thoughtfully, and there’s a brief pause before she asks, “What- what is she like?”

Han looks at her, “She’s incredible. Flew the Falcon like she’d been doing it all her life, even though she claimed she’d never stepped foot in a working ship in her entire life. Bypassed the compressor and made a half-dozen fixes in a day that’d been troubling me for years.” He chuckles to himself and shrugs, “She’s beautiful, Leia, smart and tough and when she smiles it’s brighter than the sun. Still wears her hair in those three buns she always begged you to put it up into. I offered her a job, you know, to try and keep her close without telling her who she was, but she insisted that she had to get back to Jakku. I think-” His gaze falls to the floor, his boot picking at a bit of chipping duracrete, “I think she’s been waiting for us to come back and get her.”

“Oh Han, we really messed this up, didn’t we?”

“Hey- we got one normal kid out of it. One for three, that’s not terrible, is it?”

“That’s a sixty six percent error rate, Han.”

“Never tell me the odds, darling.”

She laughs quietly, a ghost of her usual joy filled cackle, and he looks at her with a soft smile on his face, “We’re going to get her back, Leia. Both of them.”

* * *

 

“You gave him your jacket.”

Jacen nearly hits his head on the wing of his X-Wing as he ducks out from a bit of wiring he’s patching up. Leia is leaning against the nose of Black One, a knowing smile on her face.

“What are you talking about?”

“Finn, the cute ex-stormtrooper who saved your life?” Jacen blushes, polishing an imaginary stain on the hull to avoid her gaze. “He’s wearing your jacket.”

Jacen turns back to his wiring work, trying to sound indifferent. “Really? I didn’t notice.”

“That’s your pilot jacket,” Leia continues, “You know, the one your father bought you when you entered flight acad? The ugly mess you insisted on wearing everywhere, even when it was hotter than the asscrack of Hell, all because you were so happy to be a real pilot and because it reminded you of your dad and how proud he was of you?”

“Finn, he- he needed it more than I do.” Jacen shrugs, snapping the metal plating of the wing back into place and sealing it shut. “He’s a good man, and he’s been through a lot.”

“Mmhmm. You’ve got it bad.” She pulls him into a brief hug.

“So bad,” he mumbles into her hair, and she snorts before squeezing him one last time and letting go.

“Fly safe sweetheart,” she says as Jacen climbs up into the X-Wing and begins his start-up procedure.

“No promises!” he calls out to her as BB-8 loads up into Black One.

She laughs and yells back, “Idiot!”

“I love you too Mom!”

* * *

 

“Where am I?” Jaina asks the masked figure, who appears from the shrouded corner. She surveys the dark room, testing the restraints of the chair she’s cuffed to.

“You’re my guest,” he tells her in his garbled voice, the featureless helmet betraying no sense of emotion.

Jaina takes a breath, trying to remain calm, “Where are the others?”

“You mean the murders, traitors and thieves you call friends?” He takes a few paces towards her, and Jaina fights the urge to back away as far away from him as she can in her restraints. “You’ll be relieved to hear I have no idea.”

A tense silence settles between them, and Jaina can feel the fear churning at her stomach, hoping that the masked Kylo Ren can’t sense it. “You still want to kill me,” he says, as if personally offended by it.

“That’s what happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask,” she bites back at him, daring him to respond.

Kylo Ren reaches towards the nape of his neck as Jaina watches in surprise and horror. There’s a faint hiss, and the mask is removed, revealing the face of an ordinary looking man. Jaina’s not sure which was worse, to know just a mask and believe in some formless villain, or to see that it is another human who seems to be delighted and strengthened by her fear of him.

“Tell me about the droid.”  
“It’s a BB unit,” she says, “with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator-”

“It’s carrying a section of a navigational chart.” Kylo Ren interrupts her, seemingly unamused by her attempts to evade his questioning. “We have the rest, recovered from archives of the Empire. We need the last piece. And somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you. You. A scavenger.”

Jaina gulps, a loud swallow that echos in the quiet of the room. Kylo Ren leans in closer, and her hands tremble in her restraints. “You know I can take whatever I want.” His gloved hand raises to touch her face, and she squeezes her eyes shut, anticipating his touch, but he hesitates just before his fingers brush her skin.

“You’re so lonely... So afraid to leave...” Her head throbs and she can feel Kylo Ren’s dark presence seeping into her mind. She wants to throw up, to rip her skull open, to tear her arms off from where they’re restrained and run as far as she can. “At night, desperate to sleep... you imagine an ocean. I see it... I see the island.”

Jaina dimly realizes that she’s crying, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. “And Han Solo. You feel like he’s the father you never had. He would’ve disappointed you.”

“Get out of my head,” she tries to scream, but only barely manages to say the words from her gritted teeth.

“I know you’ve seen the map. It’s in there. And now, you’ll give it to me.”

He pushes further into her mind and the darkness pushes down on her consciousness, almost choking her. But then, a tiny flash of light, like the spark of BB-8’s butane lighter. It’s drawing her towards it, not unlike a small child crying out in the dark. She shudders, remembering the call of the lightsaber and her horrible vision.

“Don't worry,” Kylo says, anything but soothing, “I feel it too.”

She reaches blindly towards the light, reaching for the little speck. It stretches towards her consciousness, and the warmth floods back into her being, pushing back against the freezing cold of Kylo Ren. The light fills her with an inner strength, and she looks Kylo Ren in the eye, “I’m not giving you anything.”

“We’ll see about that,” he responds, and the darkness pushes in even further.

The light floods into her, and she pushes back at Kylo Ren. His eyes widen as she chases him out of her mind, despite his hardest attempts. She feels strong, powerful, the soreness of her muscles long forgotten and she wonders if she could snap the restraints out of sheer will. Kylo Ren looks shocked by her sudden strength, and Jaina pushes even harder until she’s the one twisting her way into his mind.

“You, you’re afraid.” The unmasked monster is almost cowering before her, despite the fact that Jaina is the one being held prisoner, “that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

* * *

 

Jaina is weary. The adrenaline that fueled her through her escape from the base and her subsequent confrontation with Kylo Ren has left her, and she’s hyper aware of how her every muscle is tired and aching. She sits beside Chewie in the Falcon, still numb to the fact that Han Solo is dead, killed by his Ben Solo, his son. No, she tells herself, he was killed by Kylo Ren, trying to save his son Ben from the warped monster Snoke had formed him into.

She can hear Finn groan in pain from the portable stretcher behind her, the skin on his back still hissing ever so faintly from Kylo Ren’s strike. Jaina reaches out with the Force and breathes a sigh of relief when she feels his unique presence, faint, but still still present. It feels warm, like lying on a patch of sand that’s been sitting under the sun, warm and familiar and tempting her to sleep in the comforting feel of his presence.

When they land on the Resistance base Jaina dimly recognizes the green that surrounds her as she stumbles after Chewie, who carries Finn out to meet the medics. They rush him off towards the duracrete building on a driven stretcher, a black haired man in a violently orange jumpsuit following fast behind him. She hears one of the medics announce Finn’s heartbeat and she exhales a breath of worry, knowing her friend is safe.

Jaina freezes at the base of the Falcon’s loading ramp, watching the churning swarms of people and aliens rushing and embracing each other. Without Finn, Jaina realizes there is no one waiting for her, and she briefly wonders if her family is waiting for her somewhere, or if they’ve forgotten her. She considers taking the Falcon, or another freighter, back to Jakku, when she remembers what Maz told her before the attack on Takodana. Her future is out here, waiting for her to discover it, and waiting on Jakku won’t bring it about for her.

A petite woman approaches her, her gray hair braided up and pinned to her head. There’s something familiar to her, something Jaina can’t quite place her finger on, like a word on the tip of her tongue that she can’t quite remember. The older woman looks at her with awe and surprise, a few tears glistening in her eyes. “Jaina,” she whispers, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

“Yes?”

The woman lets out a small sob and tentatively reaches out to her. Jaina steps into her embrace, and it’s comforting and impossibly familiar. She feels a brush of something at the edges of her consciousness, soft and gentle, nothing like the barbed attack of Kylo Ren. It stays at the edge of her awareness, not trying to push into the barrier of her mind. Instinctively she reaches out her own mind to meet the feeling, and gasps in shock.

Memories flood into her mind, whether they are hers or the woman’s she cannot say. She sees herself as a small child, impossibly tiny, held in the embrace of a younger version of the woman, of her mother.

“Mama!” her three year old self says, tugging on the dress of a woman with long brown hair that’s in some sort of complicated twist. “Do my hair please?”

“Can't Daddy help you sweetheart?”

“No! You do it better. Buns please.”

The woman smiles and kneels down, paying no mind to how her formal gown is wrinkling or picking up grime from the floor. Younger Jaina giggles as her mother brushes her hair back and pulls it into the familiar hairstyle and presses a kiss to the young girl’s forehead.

Another image, this one of her with her family. Han Solo with his arm wrapped around the waist of Leia, another resting on the shoulder of a young Ben, not yet turned to the dark side. She’s held in the arms of boy about her age, the two of them with matching grins.

“Mother?” Jaina asks, almost afraid to say it, worried that she’ll be pushed away, but the woman grips her tightly in her arms.

“Oh Jaina,” the woman, Leia, says between heavy sobs, “I was so sure that I’d never get to see you again.”

There’s so many questions that she wants to ask, so many answers that she needs to know. It’s not the time nor place, however, so she files them away to the back of her mind. For now, she hugs her long lost mother as tight as she can, content to be in the arms of the family she’s waited so long for.

* * *

 

They tell Jacen that Finn’s condition is stable, and while it lessens his worry, it doesn’t stop the shaking of his hands, the pounding of his heart, or the twisting of his stomach. He keeps watch over a comatose Finn from a chair at the man’s bedside in the med bay, refusing to move until Finn wakes up. Finn’s heartbeat beeps on a monitor, and Jacen can feel his force signature, comfortable and warm, like holding a warm mug of caf on a cold night, curled up in a blanket with a holo-novel and the view of the stars from his window.

Jacen’s received the debrief of the attack on StarKiller Base on his data reader. They’ve lost so many lives, including Han’s. He hadn’t felt the man’s life force go out, and Jacen’s not sure if he should be disappointed that they weren’t close enough that he felt it, or thankful that he hadn’t needed to push through the feelings of grief and loss in the middle of the firefight.

His mother’s sadness had hit him like a crashing wave the minute he stepped foot on D’Qar, so strong that he wondered if everyone, even the non-sensitive could feel it. Jacen had gone to find her in the crowd to comfort her, but before he could Finn was being wheeled off the Falcon, his life force dim. He’d chased after him, frantic and terrified, Finn’s hand gripped tight in his own. Part of him feels guilty for abandoning his mother, but she undoubtedly has a million and a half things to do post-attack and he’s confident their paths will cross eventually.

Jacen stares at the Finn’s chest as it rises and falls with his slow breathes. He feels the tug of a familiar presence and looks up, expecting to see his mother standing in the doorway. To his surprise, it’s the scavenger that Finn had spoken so highly of, which is odd, given that he’s never met her before. She looks in on them, nervously chewing at the skin of her lower lip.

“Is- is he okay?”

“Dr. Kalonia says he’s stable,” Jacen tells her, and she breathes a sigh of relief. “You were pretty close, weren’t you?”

“We’d only just met, but he was one of the first friends I ever had,” she shrugs, smiling down at Finn and moving to stand close to him. “You’re the pilot who saved him, right?” Jacen nods and the scavenger gives him a small smile, “He spoke very highly of you. Best pilot in the Resistance.”

Jacen tries to ignore the flutter of his heart at her words, “Well, it helps to have the General of the Resistance as your mother.”

“You’re Jacen?” The girl is surprised, her gaze shifting from watching over Finn to locked tight on the pilot’s face, her eyes widening.

“Jacen Solo, yeah. And you are?”

“Jaina.”

The name sparks a memory Jacen had long forgotten, or perhaps never remembered. He’s young, maybe two or three, chasing after a laughing girl his age with brown hair pulled into three buns on the back of her head. He puts on a burst of speed and catches up to her before tackling her to the ground, the pair giggling and laughing in a tangled heap. “Jacen!” the girl cries as she pushes him off of her.

“Jacen,” she says, breaking him free from the memory, and he’s no longer lying in the green grass of the bright meadow. Something deep inside of him yanks at his instincts, and he looks up at her and no longer sees the scavenger from Jakku who returned his droid, but sees Jaina, his forgotten sister. “Do- do you remember me?”

He nods mutely, not sure what to say next. “I’m sorry,” is what he says after a few seconds, but he’s not really sure what he’s apologizing for. Jaina smiles at him in understanding, and it’s enough.

“Did you hear about Han?”

Her smile fades, and she nods. “I was there when Kylo-” Jaina’s eyes shut and she grimaces, her nose crinkling and mouth twisting into a frown.

“Aren’t you going to go after him?”

“I did,” she says with a tiny huff of a laugh, “I fought him with Luke’s lightsaber after he took Finn down. We were separated before I had a chance to kill him. I - I think I would’ve killed him if I’d had the chance. But now, I don’t know if-” she looks down at Finn, still sound asleep, “I don’t know if that would be right.”

Jacen nods in understanding. If he’d been in her shoes he desperately would’ve wanted to kill the man who had murdered his father in front of him. But he’s grown up hearing about the danger of the dark side, and he’s not sure if killing a murderer seems justifiable if it makes him one in turn. There’s a part of him that wishes desperately that Kylo Ren had died in the collapse of StarKiller, but he knows it’s unlikely.

“Are you staying?” Jacen asks her.

“Eventually. For now, I’m going to find Luke, and try to convince him to return and train me to use the force.”

“Do you need a pilot? I’m not jedi material, but I can take you where you need to go.”

She shakes her head and Jacen tries not to let his disappointment show. “You’re needed here. I’ll be taking the Falcon, along with Chewie and R2-D2. We’re hoping the familiar ship won’t push him deeper into hiding.”

“That makes sense, I guess. So you’re a pilot too?” Jaina nods. “Great, you were already better at using the Force than me, and you upstage my spacecraft maneuvering skills.”

Jaina smiles wide, a toothy grin that makes her radiant in the small room. “Just wait until Finn tells you about how I evaded the Tie Fighters on Jakku.”

Jacen grins back at her, not quite understanding the reference, but happy all the same. She looks down at Finn with a look of longing and then turns back to her brother, “You’ll look out for him, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

She regards Jacen with her sharp gaze and smiles a little wider. “You like him.”

He shrugs at her statement of the obvious. “He saved my life.”

“You like like him.” Damn it. Ten standard minutes of knowing each other and she was already teasing him about his love life. Leia probably put her up to this. Traitor.

“Shut up.”

Jaina smiles at him, then leans down to press a kiss to Finn’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon, alright?” she whispers to Finn before leaving the small room.

* * *

 

Finn is still asleep in the med bay when Rey departs for where the map says their Uncle Luke is hiding. Jacen reluctantly leaves his bedside vigil to see his newfound sister off. She squeezes him in a tight hug and promises that they’ll have a speeder race the minute she’s back on the Resistance base. Jacen laughs and squeezes her back, wishing her luck.

His mom, dressed in one of her old Senate gowns, pulls Jaina tight in her own embrace before sending her off with, “May the Force be with you.”

Jaina’s eyes glisten as she departs from her newfound family, and promises to come back as quickly as she can and her smile is brighter than the sun.


End file.
